[QUOTE=Frylock] Link to a blogger’s review of the book
Interesting description of execution procedures. And includes this line which I feel bad for laughing at: Quote:
A condemned member of the Thai royal family has the option of being beaten to death with a sweet-smelling stick.
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Sandalwood, I believe. The last time they did this was to King Taksin, in 1782. He’d started going dangerously dotty, and they thought it best. If I remember the account of it correctly, they placed him in a velvet sack first and then beat him. Something about royal blood should not touch the ground. Apparently there was a conspiracy theory for years afterward that said he had really just been allowed to live out his life in some monastery as an anonymous monk, but historians don’t believe that.
Seconded. They should’ve used a fake gun and had somebody off-stage make the sound effect. On my basic, they gave us a demo of what blank rounds can do. Not fun.
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
:eek: As a sometime-filmmaker who has used blanks (and co-modified a Beretta 92 to fire and cycle blanks), that story scares the crap out of me. Blanks can be deadly. On our sets we had strict rules about who could handle the firearms and when they could handle them, and we trained the actors in their use (at a gun range) before shooting the scenes. Please tell me you had someone who knew what he was doing (i.e., an armourer) to conduct safety training before you staged the play!
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Nope. But I’m such a lousy shot, I’d have never hit him. :dubious:
The play ran Fri-Sun for 3 weekends without anything untoward happening.
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
:eek: As a sometime-filmmaker who has used blanks (and co-modified a Beretta 92 to fire and cycle blanks), that story scares the crap out of me. Blanks can be deadly. On our sets we had strict rules about who could handle the firearms and when they could handle them, and we trained the actors in their use (at a gun range) before shooting the scenes. Please tell me you had someone who knew what he was doing (i.e., an armourer) to conduct safety training before you staged the play!
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Obviously not; an armourer would have sent the gun home, probably with the would-be stuntman’s ears burning, and substituted a safer alternative.
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Seconded. They should’ve used a fake gun and had somebody off-stage make the sound effect. On my basic, they gave us a demo of what blank rounds can do. Not fun.
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I did a summer stock show (“Broadway” starring Merv Griffin) in which the gun scene was handled as you describe.
Please understand that I agree that this is the way to do it. But the effect in this case was so terrible the actor “shooting” the gun had a total meltdown. Things were so bad we all wondered if he’d be able to go on. He did, of course. But for the rest of the run (in Holyoke Mass.), the timing was never quite right and the sound was always puny.
There were two parts that were too small to pay scale, so the advance man would get the people at each stop along the tour to hire a couple of local amateurs. That’s how a buddy of mine and I got the parts. It was fun for the week or so that it ran.
[QUOTE=thelurkinghorror]
What exactly is the purpose of the blindfold given during execution by firing squad?
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A mercy and/or sedation for the condemned.
As an aside, being tied is also an option. Mati Hari was neither blindfolded nor tied.
[QUOTE=Walloon]
Supposedly in firing squads in Utah, only one shooter had a live round, the other four blanks.
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No, it was the opposite–four rounds and one blank.
My favorite blindfold-related cartoon was the Mister Boffo that had Boffo as the victim, with a grinning-idiot look on his face, asking, “Can I take the blindfold off now?” Caption:
I missed the edit window to add that a purpose of the blindfold is to sedate the condemned.
Take a cat without the carrier to the vet’s. You can sedate the cat by holding your hand over its eyes.
Mati Hari cite:
(I’ve already submitted this site to Weird Earl’s.)
Can’t find the author but he did excellent biographies of Mati Hari and Tokyo Rose.
(I’ve already submitted this site to Weird Earl’s.)
Can’t find the author but he did excellent biographies of Mati Hari and Tokyo Rose.
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Thanks for the cite. I gotta admit, I remain a little dubious, since the refusing the blindfold and the restraint has a certain “pure film” quality to it, but I’ve got nothing at hand to back up my doubts.
Brandon Lee was also killed in a blank-related incident… And that incident was under the supervision of professional armourers.
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I have no cite and no proof, but I had heard that the movie was so low budget, they had the prop master handling the weapons, not a weapons master… and that’s why the dislodged bullet wasn’t discovered in time. An experienced weapons master would have checked the gun before every take and made sure it was safe. A prop master wouldn’t know, and therefore isn’t qualified to handle weapons on movies.
If you march to the beat of your own snare drum, or if you simply wish to be the one the squad always remembers, eschew the blindfold and request a ball gag instead. (A side benefit is you won’t be able to beg, cry or scream, Wilhelm-style or otherwise.)
Civil wars back in the pre-machine gun era saw a lot of firing squads, since the enemy were not just soldiers but also traitors, and your solders were also exectuioners. The photos of firing squads in the Mexican Revolution and the Russian Civil War don’t show a lot of blindfolds. Ths supports the theory that the blindfold is to protect the sensibilites of the shooters. When the shooting gets routine, that wouldn’t be necessary.
Years later, when Stalin was executing thousands of vitims in the Purges and the Katyn Massacre, just shot them in the back of the head with pistols, skipping the firing squad and cutting straight to the coup de gras. Again, why bother with the niceties when its become an industrial process? However, the Poles at Katyn were blindfolded, supporting the theory that a blinded victim is easier to manage.
In the photos I’ve seen of executions from the Chinese Civlil War, the Communist victims weren’t blindfolded, but their jaws were trussed up so that they couldn’t yell revolutionary slogans before they were shot in the back of the head at close range with broomhandle mausers (which is about the only way you can hit anything with a broomhandle mauser)
[QUOTE=Slithy Tove]
they were shot in the back of the head at close range with broomhandle mausers (which is about the only way you can hit anything with a broomhandle mauser)
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Not true. The C96 doesn’t have ergonomics to match later pistols, but it is an accurate piece. If you shot one that wasn’t accurate, I suspect you had one of the many examples that had the bore destroyed through the use of corrosive ammunition and inadequate cleaning.
